I can’t quite believe that we are already more than half way through January! I know we all say this every year, but really, where does the time go to? I remember being told as a child that time goes faster as you get older and I didn’t understand it then, but now I do. I don’t mind admitting that it worries me. I get a little panicked and start to think about all the things I have yet to do. Then have a cup of tea, a bit of chocolate and just think, “Oh well, I’ll worry about that tomorrow!”

Christmas, for me, was absolutely lovely. My mum made it over in the end despite health concerns. She fell quite a few times towards the of last year and broke quite a few bones, and that combined with other health issues meant she wasn’t sure if she would be up for travelling, but travel she did.

She and my niece came again, just like the year before. Since we had such a good time n 2014 I decided to do all the same things again, and it worked. So off we went to Winter Wonderland where my brother, who had travelled down from Manchester for the day, joined us.

We wandered around the rides (which none of us went on because we were all such scaredy cats, ha!) and strolled around the stalls in the Christmas village, picking up some last minute gifts as well as a personalised Christmas tree ornament to commemorate the day (last year we all got horse shoes made by a farrier right there in front of us, and he hammered the date into them – mine is currently above my front door for good luck!).

On Christmas Eve we went to see the Nutcracker ballet and there is nothing like it to really put you in the festive mood. After that it was off to a swishy afternoon tea. Well, it was Christmas and my mum was visiting so I just thought we should push the boat out. Then that night, as we had done the year before, we all set off for midnight mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral before home for some food, a drink or two and the opening of stockings!

Christmas Day, I cooked Christmas dinner for the first time ever! But before that I made us all some Buck’s Fizz for breakfast and we opened presents followed by a walk in the park. It was a bit grey and damp but it was good to get out. Then I drove us home and started making the dinner. The evening was spent with my niece and I mostly laughing at my dear old mum talking in her sleep as she nodded off in the armchair in front of the telly, only to be woken by the loaded screaming of my niece and I as we, rather childishly, played Snap with a deck of cards from a Christmas cracker!!

I had six days off over the Christmas season but I was back to work by the 30th of January and it felt like Seasonal Insanity had gripped all my co-workers, as there was a lot of fun and good-natured mischief going on in the building (and on-air). Come midnight on New Year’s Eve I was on air launching our #QVCWellbeing campaign and the Today’s Special Value offer from Imedeen. I’ve loved the Imedeen Men’s range of supplements in the past and really noticed an effect in the appearance of my skin when I used them, so I was happy to be there to kick off 2016 with them.

Something else I got to do on-air, over the New Year period, was to work with a number of fitness experts. Marjolein Brugman was one of them (I snapped a pic of her with Craig) and we shared an hour together talking about the Aeropilates Reformer. It was only during this show that I think I began to understand what it is that Marjolein has been trying to tell us for so long: Aeropilates isn’t just a piece of exercise equipment, it’s a lifestyle choice.

Nobody should buy an Aeropilates Reformer to maybe do 20 minutes of exercise a few times a week and get instant body transformations (though you can certainly do that and notice the benefits of it almost immediately). Rather, you use the machine to facilitate a whole new way of thinking about your fitness.

We have all become obsessed with the quick fix, all of us. We want to see a difference and we want it now. Be that a crash diet or signing up to a set of personal training sessions or whatever, we want to feel that change and we want to feel it now. We also are usually doing it towards a specific short term goal: a holiday, a wedding etc. None of that reaps long term rewards. Rather, it seems to me, the way forward is to think long term.

Do I want to be able to still get in and out of a chair when I am 70, do I want to be able to bend down and put my socks on, do I want to be able to come and go as I please without the need for someone to be there helping me?

For me, “yes” is the answer to all those questions; I find that looking at your long term goals and working towards those will have, as a consequence, the short terms effects that we are all programmed to crave. I finally learned this from Marjolein. If it has taken me a long time to figure that out I am sure it is taking many others of you some time as well. I have to thank Marjolein for her continued patience with people like me who just haven’t gotten it for so long, but now I think I do!

Marjolein has her own website and is always happy to answer any and all questions you have so please check it out and really think in the life investment you make when you purchase an Aeropilates Reformer.

So the year has only just begun and already I am learning some new lessons. Isn’t that the joy of life? There is always something new to learn, some new experience around the next corner that can change everything you think you know; sometimes good, sometimes not, but always new and different.

I wish, for all of you, a year filled with lots of new things, be they new beginnings, new relationships, new journeys or, like me, new lessons learned. May each and every new thing be a joy and a blessing to you.

Until next time,

Miceal. xx

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Have been catching up on all blogs. Yours cheered me up having had chemo today. I’m glad sat garden show back you & Richard so make me laugh. Sitting watching qvc in emu slippers! Hope your mum continues to improve.
Happy new year .

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